But I guess you probably don’t quite appreciate just how much I love the nation’s favourite drink.

It’s not just the taste.

I adore the light perfume of some leaves and the dense, woody aroma of others. I love the flirtatious, glitzy pinks and lip-stick reds of our infusions and sunset ambers of our breakfast teas as you pour them into gleaming white China cups. I love the feeling of slap-your-face freshness after a slurp of mint tea and the sweet, spicy warmth of a nice masala chai.

Helen takes in the sights of Pushkar, India

There’s a blend or leaf for almost every occasion and mood.

So when my partner suggested India as a holiday destination, which is, of course, a major grower of tea, I had to go and see how this wonderful, healthy drink makes its way from a plantation into our cups. (There’s a link to a short film of the trip at the end of this blog).

I already knew a bit about the process – from reading books and websites and talking to Metrodeco’s Master Blender, Alex Probyn, who would have a black belt in tea if it were a martial art.

But it was an enriching experience to stroll in a plantation in the shadow of the Himalayas with the sun on my back. It was equally fascinating to visit a co-operative factory, where we chatted to the growers, tasters, packers and quality control experts.

Anyway, without further ado: here’s a short film of our trip (which had an especially happy ending because my partner, Michael, proposed and we’re getting married in autumn).

UPDATE: Habitat’s manager, Matt, just came to Metrodeco in person to apologise and to explain that he’d been having a bad day. He also offered us a permanent trade discount of 20% in recognition that we are regular customers. Matt and Habitat deserve full credit for listening and for being big enough to admit they got it wrong. Matt was very nice and went to great personal lengths to put things right and we respect him for being a really decent human being, not ‘rude’ and ‘inconsiderate’ as we said below.

Looks like Habitat is fostering a culture of listening and people like Matt are at the forefront of this. Well done and sincere thanks to both.

Helen

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I’ve just spoken to the rudest, most inconsiderate human being in Brighton’s retail sector.

Anyone who knows Metrodeco will know that we are usually only praise-worthy of other businesses – so this blog might give you an idea of how annoyed we are.

Anyway, having visited Habitat, I arrived home to find that the shop assistant had forgotten to put four cups into the bag he had been filling for me as he wrapped my purchases.

We’d been chatting pleasantly and there was a lot of wrapping to be done so he was probably distracted. Easy mistake to make and I certainly wasn’t going to hold it against him. Besides, all I’d have to do was call the store and ask for the items to be sent to my home.Continue reading →

We’ve had some tweets from people saying the swarm badge already been unlocked in the UK. Yes, we know! But what we are saying is that we don’t think there has ever been a successful dedicated swarm badge party in the UK, where the sole purpose was to unlock the badge.

The badge has only ever been unlocked where there have been people already gathered – like football matches, festivals and conferences. We’ve checked with Foursquare – but please tell us if we’re wrong. So we think it would be special to be the first successful swarm badge party.

And now the updates

Apart from a free glass of bubbly, you will also get a free sing at Brighton’s home of Karaoke, Lucky Voice, if you check in when we attempt the swarm. Details at the Lucky Voice blog.

Foursquare have promised us the network will be working during our attempt so there shouldn’t be any technical problems.

The current invitation suggests a hashtag #BrightonFoursquare4sqflashmob but this seems too long (hat tip @aral). Someone else kindly built the invitation for us – so we can’t change it. But can we please use the shorter hashtag #ukswarm instead?

Finally, this will only work if you invite people to come along to Metrodeco, 38 Upper St James’s Street, Brighton, from 7-8pm on Thursday August 12. So please tell all your friends online and offline.

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Right, we’re all set for the second attempt to unlock Foursquare’s elusive Swarm Badge.

I’m sure we all know what this is all about now – but there’s an explanation in our blogabout our first attempt if you’re not sure.

The key points are:

We need 50 people to ‘check in’ within an hour of each other;

There’s never been a successful dedicated swarm party in the UK – there have been swarm badges unlocked where people were already gathered for other reasons (like football matches and conferences) but no actual swarm parties as far as we know – so you have a chance to be a small part of internet history;

It will only work if you invite as many people as you can to come and join in –so please share this blog(here’s a short url you can copy and paste: http://bit.ly/cGK2Y1 or use the ‘share’ button above or below)

There’s a free glass of bubbly for the first 50 people to check in.

Thanks to all those who suggested dates and times that are best all round. We’ve gone with the most popular and so I’m really sorry if you can’t make it.

So, all that remains is for me to plead, beg, beseech and implore you to come along, even if you’re on your way somewhere else or on your way home and you don’t have much time.

Okay, after a fantastic attempt to unlock the Foursquare swarm badge yesterday, we fell short – we had 30 check-ins and we needed 50.

We’re now looking on this as a ‘dress rehearsal’ and we want to have a another attempt a.s.a.p.

Aral (@aral) and Greg (@GR3GD) both made the excellent point that we didn’t do enough to tap into Brighton’s wealth of ‘geeks’.

We’ve checked with Foursquare and there hasn’t been a successful Swarm Party in the UK before – so if we can pull it off we’d all be genuinely the first to unlock a swarm badge at a dedicated flashmob.

QUESTION: What day/time within the next week or so do you think would be best to have another go (bearing we could only do after 6pm on weekends due to being full with customers).

Please reply on the comments section below and we will announce date/time later today or tomorrow. Continue reading →

The swarm badge is unlocked when 50+ people check-in somewhere at the same time

We’re helping our customers to become among the first in Britain to unlock the highly-coveted ‘swarm badge’ on the latest social-networking phenomenon, Foursquare.

This prize is notoriously hard to unlock and can only be won when 50 or more users check in at the same place all within a short time of one another. This rare event is known around the world as a Foursquare flashmob.

Although there have been several swarm badge parties in the US – and at least one as close as Ireland – we think this could be the first in Britain. Continue reading →